February 11, 2011

"After that’s done, the next step is moving us back to the god-fearing age when women wore thick pads and belts. Proper ladies know that menstruation is god’s reminder that we’re evil, and should be dealt with in a way that maximizes discomfort and humiliation."

Erm, I remember wearing the belt with the thick pads. I don't remember that making me feel humiliated, or that I was evil, or any of that. I do remember being glad when my mother brought me a new box of pads with the new stick-on strip so I could dispense with the belt, because it was more convenient than fussing with getting those pad ends to stay in the belt clips.

Hey, you know what's humiliating about having one's period? Having it perpetually -- as it seems Ms. Marcotte does. Maybe she's on the pill? I was on the pill for a few months and while it helped with the cramps and lessened the heavy flow, it also made me fat, morose, and a bit paranoid (in that "they're all looking at me and judging me!" way).

My guess is that if Republican's backs were against the wall and they had to tell the truth they wouldn't support banning abortion and I darn well know they wouldn't be in favor of banning contraception. I doubt you could get anti-contraception majorities polling Catholics in this country.

What's funny is that the Edwards campaign hired Amanda as their blogmaster. What were they thinking?

To be fair, Edwards wanted women to get back to 1500s-era restrictions. When having babies with your mistress and having another family take them while your wife kept quiet so you could both have power was the Kingly thing to do.

My guess is that if Republican's backs were against the wall and they had to tell the truth they wouldn't support banning abortion and I darn well know they wouldn't be in favor of banning contraception. I doubt you could get anti-contraception majorities polling Catholics in this country.

This reminds me, I must head over to Amazon and leave a positive review for It's a Jungle Out There. I used the bathroom at a girlfriend's house and I should have know better because she always was a bit sloven but I realized too late the paper hadn't been replaced. The book there in the bog suited well for wiping my ass.

There it is again, the selfish rhetoric of a class of people that are narcissistic and self-indulgent. It may be you pussies ladies, but once my son or daughter is growing inside of that hallowed hall that I 'chose' to make a contribution in, then it's half my choice too. Do not use your biology against me please.

Well, in partial defense (do I have to?) of her argument, there are hard right folks who do wish to do much of the things she points to.

But they have as much influence on public policy as, well, Ms. Marcotte does.

Much of the debate in America today - certainly on the internet - consists of finding some stupid or outrageous comment by someone on the other side and holding it up as an example of all that that side wishes. "See, look at this! This is what they want to do."

And while I'm airing grievances, here's another one: 'God' is a proper noun whether you believe in him or not and should be capitalized. I know the intent behind it is petty defiance, but it just comes across as illiteracy. Imagine what would be said if Christians stopped capitalizing Darwin. Such rolling of eyes!

@ AJ do you think your commenters are way funnier than the average lib blog? I am reading the comments and laughing at almost every comment.)

I second that. Maybe not every comment, but there are some pretty funny commenters over here. And usually there is a refinement to the snark (and profanity) which is lacking elsewhere. More nuance, one might say ;-) (Trooper excluded.)

When I am snickering at the keyboard the husband usually knows I am here.

Because I have here in my house a book by James Dobson where he advocates teaching boys (the book is about raising boys) that masturbation is perfectly fine. So you're going to have to prove to me that I should thinking, "Oh yeah, Dobson, totally sexually repressive guy."

One is used to the attempt to cast aspersion on anti-abortion advocates by branding them also anti-contraception.

It is unfair to say that "anti-abortion" implies "anti-contraception", yes.

But on the other hand, the Catholic Church is the largest pro-life organization in the United States. It is vehemently anti-contraception and has a long history of lending its support to contraception bans. Wanting to ban contraception is not a fringe position among pro-lifers -- just a *minority* position.

Sanitary napkin humor does not have the broad appeal of fart jokes. I think there is tremendous comic potential with queefs, but for the male sensibility sanitary napkins are one with kleenex humor......Why has no feminist ever been offended by the fact that in China and India a kind of gendercide is going on due to abortion? I suppose it is remotely possible that a few females in America have been aborted simply because they were female. However, it is not remotely possible that any feminist would make a fuss about this......In Iran the Shah was supportive of women's rights. This was a partial cause of his unpopularity. I have never heard a feminist mount a defense of the Shah. Mrs. Mubarak campaigned against female genital mutilation. No feminist will ever give her credit for that....For all the abuse and degradation that women suffer worlwide, it seems peevish and small minded to consider restrictions on late term abortions the only cause worth railing against.

I don't know Pat Robertson's writings/statements very well but I am more familiar with James Dobson's. Can you please cite the quotes that confirms your conviction. I'm not a huge fan of Dobson but the way women are portrayed in his Christian books etc. would not be a '50's model. Of course, YMMV.

Finally, if that qualifies as bringing women back to the '50's to what future decade is Ms. Marcotte bringing women (or should I say womyn)

(When I read Dobson's book, I expected it to be crazy. Instead I found he was sufferer of the Limbaugh Effect, one of those personalities who are branded verboten by the cultural elite and then entirely misrepresented by them.)

But you didn't mention Terry because he's a nobody. You mentioned Dobson because he's more famous and has some influence. And you didn't actually know what he thought, so you misrepresented him.

I mentioned several names off the top of my head while also stating that the people who hold such views such as banning all or some contraception are fringe individuals in terms of having influence over public policy.

Second, I didn't misrepresent any views of Dr. Dobson. I provided a actual link to his Focus on Family organization and its views on birth control. Why would I "misrepresent" his views and then provide a link to those views?

He's against the use of IUDs or other birth control devices that prevent the fertilized egg from being implanted. His view is that once the fertilization occurs, that destroying the embryo should be outlawed.

Those are, in my view, out of the mainstream views of the type - type - that Marcotte is referring to.

In my view, Dr. Dobson and Robertson hold extreme views on birth control and wish to use the state to intervene in the private lives of Americans in a dangerous way.

Marcotte errs when she say such views are dominant among Republicans or the right. But such views are held by some.

No, you implied that Dobson was anti-contraception, which he isn't. Your link proved the exact opposite of your implication.

Contraception is hardly defined by the IUD, and if you think that being fine with contraception that prevents fertilization and not fine with "contraception" that results in an early abortion is a position outside the mainstream, then I'd say your stream is awfully narrow.

Rev, there's a big difference between personally anti-contraception and in favor of government bans on contraception.

Sure. There is also a big difference between being personally anti-abortion and in favor of government bans on abortion -- but there's a pretty good correlation between people who strongly oppose something and people who want it banned.

The Vatican's position on contraceptive use is that it is intrinsically evil, and not a matter for the conscience of individual Catholics. American Catholics support it to the extent that they ignore what their religion teaches them.

Amanda Marcotte is a living, breathing argument for contraception. And double bagging (and I don't mean your willy - I mean a bag over her head so you can't see her, and then one over yours just in case hers slips).

Sure. There is also a big difference between being personally anti-abortion and in favor of government bans on abortion -- but there's a pretty good correlation between people who strongly oppose something and people who want it banned.

No, there is only a "pretty good correlation" on certain issues. That's not one of them. Just like all those Catholics aren't Hindus doesn't mean that they want Hinduism banned. I'm well aware of of the Church teaching on contraception, and it is not the same as its teaching on abortion. There is no teaching that you must be in favor of a legal ban on contraception, whereas that is the teaching concerning abortion. Abortion and contraception are distinct issues within the Catholic Church.

Amanda's issues spring from her eternal juvenile magical thinking that she have the personal freedom to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, and never have an unpleasant consequence to worry her tiny amoral brain -- plus make other people pay for her behavior.

There is no teaching that you must be in favor of a legal ban on contraception

Freeman,

When it was legally possible to ban contraceptives, American Catholics -- among others -- fought to keep them banned. As noted above, the Church's position on contraception is that it is indisputably evil. The Church and Catholic organizations fight to restrict both access to contraception and the legally available methods of it.

I don't know, maybe American Catholicism really has wandered so far from the core faith that it won't be a problem anymore. But "we banned it when we had the chance, and our faith tells us it is evil, and we're fighting to restrict it even today, but we SWEAR we won't try banning it again" is, perhaps, not the most reassuring of arguments.

But personally, the whole thing reminds me of people who *swear* they don't want to ban guns -- just offer "resonable restrictions".

The Catholic Church is very clearly unambiguously opposed to all forms of artificial contraception (see Humanae Vitae Paul VI). No doubt, many, perhaps the majority of Catholics do not observe this teaching. However it is considered grave matter (i.e. mortal sin) to contracept or be surgically sterilized as a form of birth control. When we marry in the Church we specifically vow to be open to new life.

Not a popular or politically viable position for sure, but salvation is not about this world: it's about the narrow gate to eternity.

The Pope was recently widely misquoted on condoms. It was not an endorsement (he said it was a false solution in the same discussion). In context, he was referring to the use of condoms by a AIDS carrying male prostitute as evidence of a living conscience making at least a "first step" toward morality. In other words, at least the use of condoms in that case, demonstrated some modest level of care for someone other than self. The Pope was pointing to the lone mitigating aspect of an otherwise grave sin.

And Dobson wants to ban the use of IUDs or other devices that destroy a fertilized egg. That's restricting contraception.

You do understand that an organization not supporting contraception that destroys a fertilized egg and "banning" are two different things.

The irony in the timing of this Marcotte piece is the rise of the libertarian within the Republican Party. quite a few libertarians want to liberalize our abortion laws. You'd think Marcotte would rejoice in that. But it appears that once she sees the "R", logical thinking turns off.

"After that’s done, the next step is moving us back to the god-fearing age when women wore thick pads and belts. Proper ladies know that menstruation is god’s reminder that we’re evil, and should be dealt with in a way that maximizes discomfort and humiliation."

Why is that the "next step"? What conservative politician or leader thinks "menstruation is god’s reminder that woman are evil"?

Pads and belts were used because that was the best technology available. Nothing to do with "God fearing". Once technology got better, they stopped being used.

They were not "humiliating", they were an improvement on what women had used before.

It is also quite odd that Marcotte apparently thinks all conservatives are men.

My father in law used to keep boxes of Kotex pads in all of his trucks.

He was a logging contractor and if he or his employees had an injury out in the woods(skill saw rebound, smashed body parts, stabbed by the limbs or any of the other zillion things that could go wrong) a Kotex or two tightly bound to the wound, generally by a very dirty ripped tee shirt or some rope would get you by until you could drive the couple of hours down the mountain to get to the clinic.

One of his fallers once cut his own leg very badly. The guy put on a tourniquet with his belt, sewed himself up with a kit that he always carried with him. He then hiked the several miles to the camp and was Kotexed up and sent in the bed of one of the pickup trucks down to town....with a bottle of Jack Daniels to tide him over on the bumpy ride.

A few think that introducing sex early in a relationship will speed it along to true intimacy and love. They are all wrong.The earlier sex is introduced in a relationship, the shorter it is likely to be.Women tend to be emotionally hurt by sexual relationships that go nowhere, even when they think they won't care.Men and women are scarred by broken relationships. The more broken relationships we have in our past, the harder it is to make a secure marriage in the future.

I've been Catholic all my life, and I live in a very red state. I've met, at most, a small handful of people who actually favor, in practice, not using birth control.

My husband and I attended the "engagement encounter" weekend as part of our preparation to be married in the Church. While we did have a presentation on natural family planning, it was unequivocally presented as a suggestion, not a requirement, and we were specifically told that choosing birth control was not a "sin", but a "poor moral choice." (Interestingly, out of 50 engaged couples there, I was aware of at least 3 who were pregnant- this was also not a big deal.)

I've never met anyone who advocated for the actual banning of birth control.

My mother is adamently anti-abortion. She was before she joined the Church, but is even more so now. She is absolutely a single-issue voter on the matter. She knows that I'm on the pill, and has never expressed the slightest problem with it (and believe me, she would).

Methadras expresses feelings of inadequacy over lacking a uterus. I suggest he grow his own so that he can have 100% say over what happens in the housing structure of his "deposits". And so can we - at least, according to his illogic.

Just as aside to the inner workings of the Marcotte semi-grey matter ... she who is a hammer viewing all things as sexist nails ... in all seriousness she found her laundry basket a sign of "heterosexism".

I don't recall voting on this issue. I must have been absent the day they passed out the ballots.

When an organization has a long history of a certain behavior, for which that organization remains unapologetic and unrepentant, how seriously can one take people who voluntarily belong to that organization -- and, in most cases, financially support it -- when they say "oh, don't even think about trying to pin that on me"?

Did you give Obama a pass for attending Trinity United? I seem to recall you didn't.

There are a lot of people in this country opposed to at least late term abortions. The biggest organization in the country opposed to abortion is the Roman Catholic Church. It also opposes the use of contraception. Therefore people who oppose abortion also oppose the use of contraception and the use of tampons and stick on pads.

Oh, I forgot, some Republicans oppose abortions, and therefore also oppose contraception and the use of tampons.

I was hoping for an illuminating discussion of whether or not sanitary napkins or queef jokes should be considered as the natural evolution towards a new, edgier kind of fart joke. Once again, the Althouse community has let me down with their absurd tangents into issues of secondary importance.....I am not as knowledgeable about feminist issues as I am about fart jokes, but herewith some observations about sexual and reproductive rights: Much as the left felt that the right of Ukranian peasants to be free from capitalist exploitation superceded their right to eat, just so do leftists consider that the right of women to have an abortion supercedes their right to exist. Look at the disproportionate number of females that have been aborted under abortion rights and tell me this isn't so.... In international affairs, a woman's right to possess a clitoris is superceded by her right to live in a society that is not unduly influenced by western mores. Clearly women like Mrs. Mubarak and Queen Noor are Uncle Toms and are deserving of no support or recognition. If it's a choice between them and a street mullah, the enlightened western feminist will choose the street mullah.....As a general rule, western bourgeoise men are the enemy, and anything that weakens their dominance is a positive good.

On a more serious note, abortion has a significant moral aspect. If you believe that human life begins at conception, then abortion is the intentional killing of a human being (aka murder). And, even if you don't believe it begins at conception, if the abortion is after when you believe human life beings, you are talking about the intentional killing of a human being (aka murder).

For me, the line is viability. And, yes, that has been moving ever younger. But if a fetus is a minute or two emergency C-section away from being a (premature) baby, I consider it a human being. As is obvious, I am not Roman Catholic.

Contraception is very, very different. It ranges from preventing conception to causing a spontaneous abortion within a day or two of conception. I would suggest that the vast majority of the American public is just fine with those methods, even including those who think of themselves as good Roman Catholics.

I do not remember the last time that I met someone who was seriously opposed to contraception, male or female. It is just too ubiquitous, and really doesn't raise much in ethical questions.

As a guy, why should I be opposed to contraception? It has kept me from having to pay child support for 18 years or so for kids I would likely never meet.

Sure, contraception may result in more promiscuity. But sex outside marriage has been going on as long as there has been marriage. For most of us, there just isn't a basic moral issue with contraception.

So, you have two different things - abortion which is viewed as the intentional killing of a human being by a large chunk of this country, and contraception, which does not have that moral overtone. It is just plain silly to argue that they are similar just because some guy 1/3 of the way around the world who chose marriage to his church instead of to a person of the opposite sex thinks that both are bad. Hey, even he acknowledges that abortion is much worse (but then goes to tie them together by claiming that human life begins at conception, and therefore most contraception is a form of abortion - which few outside the Roman Catholic clergy really accept).

The argument for banning abortions is that if it is the intentional killing of human beings, then it is hard to justify why people should be sent to prison, or even executed, for the intentional killing of humans after birth, but there is no penalty if they are intentionally killed a couple of minutes before birth.

Now how this all got tied in anyone's mind to pads and tampons is beyond me.

Oh, I forgot, some Republicans oppose abortions, and therefore also oppose contraception

If the official position of the Republican Party was that contraception was evil, and if the Republican Party had spent the past centuries fighting long and hard to keep women from having access to contraception, then yes, I would laugh at people who supported the Republican Party while claiming to have nothing against contraception.

That's like supporting ObamaCare while claiming to be for small government. At the very least it establishes that you've got much bigger priorities than worrying about the size of government. :)

...queef jokes should be considered as the natural evolution towards a new, edgier kind of fart joke. Once again, the Althouse community has let me down with their absurd tangents into issues of secondary importance...

They're too preoccupied w pubic hair, haven't you noticed? Well, some are, anyway. (I'd have said boobs, but TItus hasn't been around lately.)

As both were legitimized most thoroughly by Supreme Court decisions, would those who wish to overturn 'Roe v. wade' also disagree with the right to privacy as interpreted by the Court in 'Griswold v Connecticut?'

Regardless of what people want democratically, if abortion is left to the states to decide legislatively or in their own constitutions, might some ruling also let states decide on the legality of contraception?

Even though hardly anyone opposes legal contraception or considers (publicly) banning it, I think the arguments against the "right to privacy" are fairly common.

And Dobson wants to ban the use of IUDs or other devices that destroy a fertilized egg. That's restricting contraception.

Actually, that wouldn't be the case.

Contraception would involve a means or method that prevents the egg and sperm from joining in the first place. Hence, the Pill (blocks ovulation), condoms (blocks sperm), cervical caps (blocks sperm), the rhythm method, and all such other things that center on keeping egg and sperm separate from each other.

In contrast, IUDs, abortions, and RU-486 work by destroying the egg AFTER it has been fertilized. Since conception has already occurred, these are not contraceptives; they are abortifacients.

And therein lies the word game. You would get no argument whatsoever from the vast and overwhelming conservative, religious, and Republican population that adults should be allowed free access to whatever contraceptive they desire. Condoms, pills, whatever -- just as long as the intent is to prevent egg and sperm from joining, and not to eliminate the fertilized egg after that has happened.

The reason perverse fools like Marcotte and Planned Parenthood play this game is because drawing that line would make it clear that they fall nicely on the baby-killing side. They really don't care about condoms, the Pill, and whatnot; what they want is to get their pound of flesh, as it were, and charge for it.

In short, I, who consider myself strongly religious and pro-life, have no problem whatsoever with birth control pills, sterilization, condoms -- anything that keeps the egg away from the sperm and prevents conception. However, once conception has happened, that entity is a brand-new being, scientifically, morally, and spiritually; to deliberately kill it or prevent it from implanting is abortion, and it involves the destruction of another distinct human life.

I have a problem with people wanting to eat chocolate and throw up the calories, or who think that food having a digestive dimension is some kind of imposition. Sort of a serious misunderstanding of what food is for.

But a lot of people don't really understand the birds and the bees, these days.

In contrast, IUDs, abortions, and RU-486 work by destroying the egg AFTER it has been fertilized. Since conception has already occurred, these are not contraceptives; they are abortifacients.

I'm starting to wonder if Focus on the Family pamphlets are the sole source of birth control information for the people in this thread.

The medical consensus is that IUDs work by preventing fertilization. It has been *hypothesized* that they may also prevent implantation of fertilized eggs. Stating that like it is a fact is inappropriate.

Rev (to DBQ): Did you give Obama a pass for attending Trinity United? I seem to recall you didn't.

What an exceptionally silly comment. Really, Rev, I expect better from you. You just tried to hold DBQ responsible for an opinion of members of a church that she doesn't belong to (DBQ's not Catholic, or even really Christian, IIRC) which was held before she was even born (or at least old enough to be aware).

That's like being upset about Obama's connection to Trinity not because Obama went there, but because someone who also went to law school went there in 1953. Obama himself actually chose to go to that church and worship under the leadership of that man, who was saying those things at the time. There's not even the slightest similarity.

Rev keeps saying that the RC regards contraception as intrinsically evil. He's wrong. Abortion is intrinsically evil. Contraception is does not fall into that category, or else the Church would not teach NFP (natural family planning). What the Church opposes is artificial contraception, because it perverts the sex act into something that it is not, by removing from it the possibility of creating new life.

Nevermind... just looking around we can see what a tremendous positive influence the ready availability of contraceptives and abortion have been! Why, the strength of the Black family alone provides sufficient testimony to justify this great social experiment!

"The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable."

else the Church would not teach NFP (natural family planning).

"Natural family planning" is not contraception. But if you want to play words games then yes, the RCC is fine with contraceptive techniques provided they don't actually prevent women who WOULD have conceived from doing do.

It is in no way representative of Catholics in America in 2011. Nor is the Vatican. Open your eyes.

The Vatican is still fighting tooth and nail against condom distribution, even in poor nations where AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases present significant non-contraceptive reasons for adopting them.

Heck, they devote considerable money and effort to promoting the lies about the supposed "ineffectiveness" of condoms, further driving down usage by people ignorant enough to take moral guidance from Rome. You support men who would rather see you dead than using contraception, Lyssa.

Congratulations, Revenant, and good work finding a quote using the term "intrinsically evil" rather than the much more commonly found "illicit". The fact that you found it in a document advising how priests should receive and counsel married persons in the confessional explains why it isn't a commonly used phrase among the laity.